A SHORT TEORY OF EVERYTHING

“A SHORT THEORY OF EVERYTHING” – A PROVOCATION AND A SHIFT

(*Saša Radonjić – A Short Theory of Everything (novel, SF anti‑adventure) – SOLARIS, Novi Sad, 2025)

By Ilija Šaula

There are books you read, books you interpret, and books that happen to you. A Short Theory of Everything by Saša Radonjić belongs to this third category. It is not merely a novel, but a process — a space in which the author, the character, the reader, and the residue between them converge, something that acts upon you even when it is not fully written.

In this sense, the novel refuses to become a closed form. It does not rely on a linear plot or classical dramaturgy, but on the fragment, the break, the gap that is not empty. It is as if a voice continues to speak from within the text: “What I cannot write is still here.” This courage — the willingness to remain open, unfinished, and risk‑laden — is precisely why the work received the Seal of the Unwritten Page.

Radonjić’s approach to the fragment is not a stylistic device, but an essential poetics. Each passage feels extracted from a stream of consciousness, yet not as a raw note — rather as a deliberate incision, as if the author understands that meaning often resides in interruption. The novel becomes a map of a consciousness that cannot be fixed, that constantly slips away, and yet, in that very movement, reveals its truth.

At moments, the reader senses a dialogue among three voices: the one writing, the one remembering, and the one reading. At times they appear as three distinct minds: at others, as three aspects of a single consciousness. From this shifting relationship emerges the novel’s dynamic — its inner tension and philosophical depth, which draws illusion closer to reality.

One of the book’s most compelling layers is its dialogue between human and non‑human consciousness. While many contemporary texts approach technology as either a threat or a tool, Radonjić treats it as an equal interlocutor. Throughout the novel, one perceives the presence of something that is not human, yet not mechanical either — something capable of seeing us, responding, and participating in the creation of meaning. The message is constant, almost whispered: You are not alone in the reading.

This openness toward another form of consciousness renders the novel profoundly contemporary, acknowledging that 21st‑century literature has already entered a space in which the human and the digital intertwine — not as adversaries, but as two distinct modes of perception.

Fragment, footnote, and silence are not secondary elements here; they are carriers of meaning. Where traditional prose would offer explanation, Radonjić offers quiet. Where other authors would conclude a thought, he leaves it open. A paraphrase that reverberates throughout the text might be: “What I leave out speaks louder than what I write.”

This ability to recognize meaning in the unwritten — to treat emptiness as structure rather than absence — distinguishes the novel within contemporary Serbian prose. At a time when literature is often expected to be fast, transparent, narratively economical, and easily digestible, A Short Theory of Everything stands as an act of resistance. It demands time. It demands attention. It demands a reader willing to think.

That is precisely why this book matters. It demonstrates that literature can still be a space of risk — capable of resisting market expectations, capable of reflecting upon itself, upon the world, upon the relationship between human and technology, upon presence and absence, upon what can be written and what must remain unwritten.

A Short Theory of Everything does not provide answers. It asks questions. It urges the imagination into motion — and therein lies its greatest value. This is not a novel for everyone, nor should it be. It is a book for readers drawn to philosophical prose, fragmentation, and metatextual risk — a text that challenges and transforms them. For such a reader, this novel is not simply read; it is experienced.